


Stuck like a shipwreck out here in the dust

by 35391291



Series: The sound of the sea [2]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9621737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35391291/pseuds/35391291
Summary: Magic is not difficult now, it's not a dark riddle anymore. It simply is.A short story about new beginnings, new spells and (hopefully) new answers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration taken from [Whistle down the wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpnnMb1WtZM), by Tom Waits. Also slightly inspired by [I talk to the wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJa5sxlvsVg), by King Crimson.

The sky is grey. Birds fly around creating dark clouds, and it suits Hannah just fine. These days, there is nothing threatening about them. She can focus on their silence instead, and guess their message. Magic is not difficult now, it's not a dark riddle anymore. It simply is.

Hannah is learning how to breathe again. She has been here and there and all over, and it's not easy to live in between worlds. There was a time when everything around her was fire and rage and rust. Her heart was frozen and heavy as lead, weighting her down, slowly sinking into winter and sad memories. She screamed out old spells, but no one answered, and she was left alone with the dust, the night and the pain. And she was afraid. The moors were all she had, but she was drowning in dry land, and she knew that she had to go. 

She prays for safe journeys. And perhaps, for a new beginning. If she isn't strong enough now, she will be later. Time willing, she will.

Maybe she is someone else now, or maybe she is awake, at last. The road has carried her here but, deep down, her soul has always longed for the sea. She has been dreaming about it all her life. Has it dreamt about her? That might be too much to ask for. But she and Dido have been searching for too long for a place they could call their own, and this looks as good as any. Perhaps it will feel right, eventually. There is water all around, but Hannah is not drowning anymore. She can breathe here, and that's a start.

Magic feels like talking to the North wind. And she does that a lot now, whistling old half-forgotten songs and calling for rain, cold weather or a small sign. She learns spells from the black birds and binds them close to her heart, threaded by Dido's love and her tender hands. One day, two of those birds fly down and land on their arms for a moment. They now carry them in black ink, forever as a part of their own spell.

When time becomes a feather or a grain of sand, the answers are not so important. Everything stops, so she can stop searching too. Right now, standing on this clifftop, with Dido's hand safely tucked in hers, she has everything. She is out of the water, but she is still a part of the sea. Even though it doesn't dream, she knows that it is listening, and perhaps one day it will have an answer. But right now, its song is enough.


End file.
